History of Philosophy.

Nietzsche as a prophet of our time, by Vladimir Mozhegov, publicist, for VZGLYAD. 10.15.2024.

October 15 marks the 180th anniversary of the birth of the man who proclaimed "the death of God." Were there figures to match him? Who could give a non-vulgar judgment about him, which he himself would have accepted about himself? Yes, there were. And if we could ask him, he would probably name them first. Who is it? First, Dostoevsky, second, Christ.

The most famous Nietzsche in Russia is, of course, Nietzsche the Antichrist, the "blond beast", the superman, the forerunner of Nazism. But this is, perhaps, the most fictional, the most mythical Nietzsche of all. Nietzsche was not an idol of National Socialist Germany. To understand why, it is enough to read his caustic texts, full of caustic sarcasm, directed against German nationalism. A man who declared war on everything German, who demonstratively renounced German (Prussian) citizenship and even German blood, who seriously declared himself a Pole: “I am a purebred Polish nobleman, without a single drop of dirty blood, of course, without German blood” (even though there is no evidence of Nietzsche’s Polish origins), and who also made friends with Jews (Lou Salome was his only love, Dr. Paul Ree was one of his last friends) – could such a man be an idol of the National Socialists? Of course, he was honoured like any other German genius, but that’s all. So Nietzsche the Nazi is a historical fake; like the “blond beast”.

The real foundation of National Socialism was not Nietzscheanism at all, but right-wing Hegelianism. True, we preferred to remain silent about the latter. After all, it is not far from right-wing Hegelianism to left-wing. And the Communists were left-wing Hegelians. That is why the National Socialists turned into “Nietzscheans” and simply “Nazis” (the word “socialism”, like “Hegelian”, also turned out to be reserved). And for a joke about the dispute between left-wing and right-wing Hegelians in Stalingrad, one could end up in prison.

Today, however, there is a Nietzsche for every taste. Mussolini, the Bolsheviks (Lunacharsky, Bogdanov), the anarchists (Gustav Landauer), the Freudo-Marxists (Adorno, Horkheimer), and Carl Jung all called him their own. Today, the most popular Nietzsche is the precursor of existentialism (Camus) and postmodernism (Derrida).

There is an even more surprising Nietzsche the liberal. Indeed, he valued the human personality above all else, valuing above all else the independence of man in disregard for all values ​​imposed by society from the outside. In which he really resembled Rousseau with his "happy savage". But Nietzsche himself was not a "happy savage". His Dionysus was a tragic figure. Next to whom Rousseau and the whole company of enlighteners looked more like that same rabble of "last men" hated by Nietzsche, who "blink their eyes and do not understand".

The same can be said about his other privatizers. Nietzsche was indeed a revolutionary, but he spoke most of all about overcoming anarchism and nihilism, and he could not stand the rebellious rabble that the communists worshiped. He even hated Christianity because, in his opinion, it killed the spirit of high antiquity.

So if anyone came closer to the real Nietzsche than others, it was, of course, the traditionalists. Those same classical Guenon, Evola and the like. They, in any case, did not try to stretch Nietzsche's owl onto the globe of their stunted ideology, but followed him and accepted him as he was - a man who declared war on the entire modern world, on all, you see, "progress", with such inimitable fury that not only Christianity, but also Plato and Socrates were swept away by it (after all, it was because of him, Socrates and his friends, the urban rabble, that Tragedy and Tradition perished!). Yes, Nietzsche's ideal was not even Athens, but Sparta (with its rank and hierarchy), and of course, its strict gods, and not even gods, but - supermen!

Yes, that's how it was. But neither Guenon, nor Evola, nor even more so their epigones were, alas, either those poets of all-conquering power, nor the manifest tragedy of existence, which Nietzsche himself was. And therefore they could not help but find themselves in approximately the same position as those we have already passed: that is, they could not help but vulgarize Nietzsche...

Very well. In that case, were there figures to match him? Those with whom he could feel himself on an equal footing, who could give him a non-vulgar judgment, which he himself would have accepted about himself? Yes, there were. And if we could ask him, he would probably name them first. Who were they? First, Dostoevsky, second, Christ. The first is the one whom Nietzsche himself called his double. The second, about whom he once remarked: in essence, there was only one true Christian - and he was crucified. He, a man extremely proud, but in no way arrogant, treated these two seriously. Towards the first with delight, sometimes turning into worship (the only living soul in the whole wide world with whom, as he himself felt, he had something to talk about!). Towards the second... Now that is a very difficult topic.

Because we have already answered the question "who is Nietzsche" in general: a poet. A great and tragic poet. But the main thing is a real poet, one who is able to experience the tragedy of the era as his own: "If the world splits, the crack will go through the poet's heart," Heine noted. This is precisely the poet Nietzsche was. His era killed God. And "The Death of God" became his personal tragedy.

…And I will never believe,
That death will be behind the door
, Someday, tart, waiting for me:
That, buried somewhere in a grave,
I
will no longer drain the fragrant drink of life!
Oh, happiness, don’t abandon me!

(translated by K. Svasyan)

– thus wrote the fourteen-year-old Nietzsche. The mature Nietzsche, through the mouth of the “madman” from “The Gay Science,” exclaimed: “Where is God? … We have killed him – you and I! We are all his murderers! … ​​God is dead! God will not rise again! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, murderers of murderers! The most holy and powerful Being that ever was in the world bled to death under our knives – who will wash this blood off us?” … Apparently, when Nietzsche shouted these words from the depths of his heart, that “real, non-calendar twentieth century,” “the century of the death of God,” about which he prophesied, began. Because, of course, he was not only a poet, but also a prophet.

Nietzsche was born on October 15, 1844. He suffered a stroke 45 years later, in January 1889, and died 11 years later, in August 1900, of complete oblivion… And another 45 years later, in August 1945, the nuclear hurricane that destroyed Hiroshima heralded the beginning of a new, apocalyptic world. Exactly 45 years after the death of the man who proclaimed the “death of God”… And in these bizarre dances of numbers and rhymes of history is the poetry of Nietzsche the prophet.

It was not Nietzsche who affirmed the "death of God." His entire century affirmed it with every word and deed. Nietzsche only had the honesty, courage, and strength to accept, pronounce, and experience the entire eschatological tragedy of a fact that his time had indifferently passed by, almost without noticing its loss. If this civilization does not need God, then who needs this civilization? It was his personal death, his personal grief, with which he never reconciled himself.

God died? Died and did not rise again? And what about me? Will I also die and not rise again? Behind all of Nietzsche’s furious attacks on culture, Christianity, the very beginnings of European civilization, there is the same enormous, unheard-of, unbearable, heaven-stopping insult: He died and did not rise again! And behind all the overthrows of idols, gods, values ​​of this decadent civilization, which calmly, as if nothing had happened, continues to live with this most terrible of losses, there is one desperate hope: what if something survives? And God rises again? After all, only something unshakable, eternal can survive…

They say that great saints and great criminals are made of the same stuff. Nietzsche's enormous soul was undoubtedly called to holiness. But in that new, godless world in which he lived, there was no place for holiness. And he became a great criminal (apostate), trying to make God speak, to rise again: a self-proclaimed antichrist, trying to shout to Christ.

You have given me so much pain and so much soul to contain this pain, and so much intelligence to comprehend it all – why? Are you a monster? Are you the devil? In this endless resentment (resentment is his favorite word) and endless insults with which he showers God, he seems to strike sparks of his impossible faith. In essence, Nietzsche’s whole life is one desperate cry to God: Resurrection! One endless thirst for faith and its unattainability.

"Only by plunging into ever new torments did he escape his suffering," notes Lou Salomé. "Anyone who has ever built a new heaven has found the strength to do so only in his own hell," Nietzsche himself writes in The Genealogy of Morals.

From here, it seems, grows his Superman. For if the death of God has knocked at the gates of the new age, who else can have the spirit and strength to bear such a loss? And isn't this what he ultimately wants: to grow into a Superman, so that, reaching out to God, he can shout into His ears his unheard-of insult:

...fierce hunter,
you unknown - God...
Wound me deeper,
wound me as before!
Pierce, strike my heart!...
You are a tormentor god!...
Sting me!
The fiercest sting!
Let me in my loneliness...
thirst at least for an enemy...

(Dithyrambs to Dionysus, Ariadne's Complaints, trans. Mikushevich)

Nietzsche, standing on the edge of the abyss and looking where few had looked before him, desperately needed God. Just like Dostoevsky. But Dostoevsky, going through his crises, forced himself to believe: “to believe that there is nothing more beautiful, deeper, more sympathetic, more reasonable, more courageous and more perfect than Christ.” Nietzsche found a way out in an equally passionate denial. Striking, yes – sparks of faith from his despair…

"Keep your mind in hell and do not despair," said the prophet of the twentieth century. If Nietzsche had humbled his indomitable spirit for just a moment and listened (and he listened attentively to Dostoevsky), he might have heard this quiet voice of the resurrected God...

https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/10/15/1292341.html

What is Russian civilization?, by Andrey Polonsky, writer, historian, for VZGLYAD. 10.16.2024.

Russia is the freest country in the world. Here freedom is not guaranteed from start to finish, but everyone takes as much as they can bear, without swearing off prison and poverty.

In the 21st century, the civilizational approach to history and our current existence has become a byword. With Huntington's light hand, we think about the Clash of Civilizations; large international political and cultural forums, scientific round tables and conferences are held on the topic of civilizations. And of course, the most important question for us is about Russian civilization, its characteristic features, its highlighted differences. How did it happen that we are not them; not "they" - the West, not "they" - the East? Where is the line of separation and why is it important for us?

Due to geography and history, Russian civilization is the limit, it is on the border (of the possible). One moment, a delay, a breakdown – and it will be too late.

Even in the “Word on Law and Grace,” the first significant monument of Russian literature, Metropolitan Hilarion recalls the Gospel parable of the workers of the eleventh hour, which became the heartfelt focus of the Easter Epistle of John Chrysostom, which is read in every Orthodox church on the night of the Resurrection of Christ.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who is an owner of a house, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. And he agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, and sent them into his vineyard. And when he had gone out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And to them he said, “Go you also into my vineyard, and whatever is due I will give you.” And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. Lastly, he went out about the eleventh hour, and found others standing idle, and said to them, “Why do you stand here all day idle?” They say to him, “No one has hired us.” He said to them, “Go you also into my vineyard, and you will receive whatever is due.” And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first.” And they who came about the eleventh hour received a denarius each. Now they that came first thought that they should receive more: and they also received a denarius. And when they had received it, they murmured against the master of the house, saying, These last worked one hour, and thou hast made them equal with us, which have borne the burden and the heat of the day. But he answered and said to one of them, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst thou not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is thine, and go thy way: but I will give to this last as I gave to thee. Have I not power to do what I will with mine own? Or is thine eye evil because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last: for many are called, but few are chosen. (Matthew 20:1–16)

The historian Georgy Fedotov also reflected on this same parable in his famous book “Saints of Ancient Rus',” written in the period between the two world wars, in anticipation of the greatest trials that were to befall Russia and the entire world.

…Like the workers of the eleventh hour, the youngest at the Easter feast, we are the heirs of the deepest Orthodox tradition, its original message, the great Greek culture, “Hellenism, which ecclesiasticised antiquity,” as the brilliant Russian philosopher and theologian of the end of the last century, Yevgeny Andreevich Avdeyenko, said. Heirs of the magnificent Byzantium with its statehood, the role of the Church, art, which for a long time were directed only upward, through the hardships of life, directly to the meaning. This line of succession is reflected in the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome, another wandering idea of ​​our conciliar (that is, collected from everyone) consciousness.

In the Russian world, this meeting, the borderland – of old and young – is especially acute. In one of his last lectures, their union was brilliantly illustrated by Losev, who showed that eternity is eternal youth, and eternal old age is Koschei the Deathless.

This trait remained with us in the 18th-19th centuries, and even in the 20th century, when we adopted Western forms. Even communism, a purely Western phenomenon, we turned into something completely Russian, with its gaping heights, horror and breakthrough, broken destinies and the intoxicating possibility of living differently.

Because of this meeting – youth and universal root tradition – Russia remains a country of paradox and can in no way become a country of law and rule. We are so good because we are so bad. Gleb and Boris – the passion-bearers who refused to resist, are considered the first patrons of the Russian army.

At the same time, our land is simply by the will of its location on the map a country of explorers, a territory of open space. There is always a place for escape, for an escape inward, therefore there is not and cannot be a rigid social hierarchy. So the monks went beyond the Volga and settled the Russian North, so the peasants fled to the south and settled the Donetsk steppes, so the ushkuiniks, and after them the Cossacks, were drawn beyond the Stone, and reached the last limit, the end of the earth, the Pacific Ocean. We are truly an empire from sea to sea, but not a state of conquerors, but a state of explorers.

We do not have clear rules and there cannot be a dictate of law in the Roman version. Russia is a country of the general and the community, but each case is individual. There is not and cannot be a common measure for everything and everyone.

Our main positive hero is not a righteous man, but a repentant sinner. Many famous monasteries were founded by robbers, such as Optina Pustyn. It was always emphasized that it was the robber who first entered heaven after Christ.

Russia thirsts for justice, but knows best that it is impossible here, below. The most terrible moments of national history are when this knowledge is forgotten, overwhelmed by a turbid historical wave or, rather, by Western, not always conscious, propaganda. We owe our very presence next to the West with its codification systems to the deepest upheavals of our history. But it, this West, is not always to blame. Such is fate.

But at the same time, for the West itself, the invasion of the Russian world has several times been like a bucket of cold water: Wake up! What is happening to you? What are you doing?

This was the case with the Holy Alliance after the Napoleonic Wars, partly with the Russian Revolution, which restored hope for social transformation for a long time, and partly with great Russian literature, which gave great meaning to Western fiction.

Perhaps we are experiencing something similar at this historical moment, despite all the resistance from the enemy and opponent.

Maybe that is why Russia is the freest country in the world. Here freedom is not guaranteed from here to there, but everyone takes as much as they can bear, without swearing off prison and poverty.

In general, Russia is always a border. For a European fosterling, a German (that is, someone who is mute, or someone who is not us) – it is still partly a native space, but already different. What a Russian doesn’t care about is death to a German – that is exactly how, if not more crudely, the famous proverb sounds in reality.

But for an Asian, Russia is only partly a road to Europe. Here he is still a little at home, here he can still not feel the civilizational distance.

Germans and Turks are two types of "native foreigners", those with whom we feel normal, almost good. The rest are strangers.

We have great similarities with both Indian and Islamic culture. The Tatar-Mongol heritage has defined us to a certain extent – ​​from the desire to travel, to the road, to the nomadic – through dark places, beyond the great rivers – to the indisputable fact that our territory itself (the real and legal territory of the Russian Empire and the USSR) is in fact determined by the empire of Genghis Khan, several of its uluses.

To be one of our own in Russia, to be born and raised here, in these windswept spaces, is the heaviest burden and the greatest joy.

Stay home! Compared to our concentration, the rest of the world is a diluted compote.

https://vz.ru/opinions/2024/10/16/1292329.html